pictures and good news

The good news is that I got a job. I am very excited. I got the job at UCLA; I'm not really sure about the details yet, but I am going in to meet with the human resources to fill out paperwork and then I start on Monday.

And here are some pictures of the apartment. I don't know if the pictures quite do the place justice, but basically our furniture fit perfectly so there is barely an inch between any two pieces of furniture.

I'll post more details about the job as I find them out.

California Report

Well, Tom and I have just about settled into our tiny little apartment. We got to LA on Tuesday and our stuff got here on Wednesday so we have everything IN the apartment, but not everything has a home yet.

So far we are really liking Westwood. Just about everything is within walking distance (various shops, reataurants, grocery stores, and Best Buy). The traffic (so far) hasn't been too bad and we have yet to meet any of our neighbors. Our windows overlook the intersection of two streets so there is frequent honking, lots of loud music, and plenty of interesting conversations that drift in through the window. Though our main room is quite small, our kitchen and bathroom are infinitely better than our last place so I guess we can't complain too much. We did have to give up our small couch and hopes of getting a bookshelf, but other than that our furniture fits perfectly within the room. Right now we have about 90% of our things unloaded and hope to get the rest finished up this weekend. Once we have found a place for everything, I promise to post some pictures.

So far I have had three job interviews. Two of them were for one job (the first was just a screening interview and the lady who screened me has actually hired me to tutor her son in math on Saturdays). That job is literally across the street from the ocean and involves setting up long term health plans for large businesses. The pay is ok, but it is a little further than I was hoping to commute. The second job is working for UCLA scanning medical records into a database. While it sounds less interesting, it does pay (quite a bit) more and it is only three blocks from our apartment. I won't find out about either of those until sometime next week and have been applying other places in the meantime.

Other than that we have been filling our time setting up our utilities, internet, and applying for student loans. We attended our UCLA ward last Sunday and REALLY liked it. Our chapel is behind the temple and is old and beautiful. Most of the students who are currently in the ward are in law or dental school, so Tom has already made some friends with his classmates. He starts school two weeks from today so we have a little while to recover from the move before his classes begin . . .

new apartment

Ok, I just have a minute to post some pictures because we are borrowing the starbucks internet while we attept to set up all of the utilities/internet for our apartment. So, here are a few pictures. We will give more detail once we get our own internet set up.

more family pictures, 24th of july, and tom's foot

I'll just post a few pictures from the last week since we're busy packing. Although the picture of Tom's foot probably needs an explanation. He dropped a knife on it while we were packing last night. It's not pretty.

Caffeine Free Day 7

Well, technically day 6 for me. Tom quit Dr. Pepper a day before I quit Diet Coke. The headaches have (for the most part) subsided and our desire to eat out has taken a hit, but I think we're both feeling better.

If you want to see some of the reasons that we quit (other than the financial reasons), click here: Caffeine
Notice the picture of the spider webs about halfway down the page.

In other news, we definitely have an apartment. We will be moving in August 1st and, once we get the internet, there will be plenty of pictures. Before I forget, here is our contact information in LA:

667 Levering Ave Apt 7
Los Angeles, CA 90024

Tom's cell phone: 801-830-9213
Erica's cell phone: 801-231-3349

We may be changing to 310 numbers sometime in the future, but we will be keeping our 801 numbers for a little while.

Though we can't get into our apartment until the 1st, we will be leaving Provo July 28th and spending a couple days in Bakersfield. We quit our jobs (our last day was Friday) so we have the rest of the week to pack up and visit with family. We'll be BBQ-ing for the 24th of July with my family, taking family pictures and going to dinner with my dad and siblings on Tuesday, and packing like crazy on Wednesday and Thursday.

Considering the fact that we have been experiencing 100+ temperatures for the last couple weeks and we have no air conditioner, we are ready to get the freak out of this place.

Over the last couple weeks we used some expiring movie gift certificates. We saw Lady in the Water (pretty awful), Monster House (which was in 3D and gave us a headache but was hilarious), and Click (a lot better than I thought it would be).

Another contributing factor to our movie-going is probably the fact that we sold our television to contribute to the move-to-California fund. Also, the thing was incredibly heavy and Tom and I can't lift it together. So if anyone wants to contribute to the Tom-and-Erica-need-a-TV fund, we welcome donations.

And to liven things up a bit, here are a couple pictures from the past week. The first is of me intently enjoying our Nintendo and the second is of Tom looking insane before he got his hair chopped off on Friday.

Do we have an apartment?

We think so, but we're not sure. The manager of the complex is currently on vacation and wasn't able to finalize everything before he left. And we don't know whe he'll be back. Last we heard he hadn't done our credit checks, contacted our pervious residences, contacted the owner of the complex, or contacted the guy whose contract we're taking. We are both quite frustrated with this.

On the bright side, I have two job interviews lined up for the first week in August. Both are on the lower end of what I was hoping to make, but the response is encouraging. One is as a technical assistant for an extended living home in the Pacific Palisades and the second is as an office manager for a plastic surgeon in Beverly Hills.

We probably won't find out about the apartment until early next week, so hopefully I don't have a stress-induced heart attack by then.

an almost emergency

This afternoon Tom called our future landlord to make sure he received our cashier's check for deposit and first month's rent. The landlord responded by saying, "Um . . . I think I already rented the apartment." To which Tom responded, "You did WHAT?"

After that I grabbed the phone and proceeded to get quite upset and shed a few tears and the landlord said he would "try to find us somewhere else" and "call us back in about an hour." I don't think I have had a more nervous hour in my life. We were convinced we were going to have to drive to LA and we were going to end up finding a $1600/month apartment that was too far from school, but finally landlord called back and said he had a tenant who was looking to get out of their contract and that we could have the apartment on August 1st.

Relief. The apartment is in the same building as the apartment that we almost had, just two apartments down and it is the same price.

And, in case anyone is interested, here is an add for the apartment that we found online:

$1250 - Extra Large Single/Studio

Large, sunny single with full and separate kitchen and lots of closet space.

Walk to UCLA and Westwood Village.

Building is gated with entry system. Lots of greenery, quiet building.No Pets!
Laundry facilities on premises.

pictures

We had family pictures with my mom's family last week and just got them back so I thought I would post a couple.

In other news . . . I hate my job. But I'm only working there for 5 more days :)

two weeks . . .

That's right. In two weeks we'll be packing up the moving van and heading out to California. We have one more week of work, then a week of packing.

We finally found an apartment. It costs a whopping $1250/month and yes, it is only a studio. But the good news is that it is two blocks away from UCLA and it actually includes a parking spot. The bad news is that I don't have a job yet . . . This week as we sent in a check for the apartment's deposit and first month of rent, we realized that we worked all summer so that we could pay for the deposit, one month of rent, and the moving truck. Kind of depressing, but at least we have each other ;)

Anyway, Tom's dad was in town this weekend for a funeral and we spent some time with him and visited Tom's grandmother in Orem, so here are a couple pictures:

4th of July Hike

For the 4th of July Tom and I hiked up to Timpanogos cave with some friends of ours. It was a lot of fun, though tiring, and we then spent most of the rest of the day watching Extreme Makeover on the Style Network.

In other news . . . we are aggresively apartment hunting. We have a couple of potential places, but nothing is definite yet. . .

sick :(

The only news from us as of late is that Tom has been sick. He wasn't feeling well last week (fever of 103+) so we took him to the doctor on Saturday and it turns out that he had an ear infection and strep throat. After that started to clear up on Sunday, he developed some kind of gum virus that turned his tongue green and ate away at the roof of his mouth. He started calling it "The Green Dragon" because it made everything taste disgusting and everything made his mouth sting (even water). At this point we're just considering it to be an effective diet.

The Green Dragon has started to disappear, but of course something else had to go wrong: one of Tom's fillings fell out this afternoon.

The good news is that we're working and I have yet to catch the strep or the Green Dragon (although a couple of our co-workers came down with strep a couple days after Tom did). So right now we're just looking forward to a nice relaxing weekend at home.

provo working report

Well, after three days at work I do not think I will be going back. It became more and more apparent that the company I was working for was running a scam where people paid them upfront to advertise their car, and then the company didn't really do any advertising. So . . . I quit on Wednesday and interviewed for a new job yesterday afternoon. I actually interviewed for a technical writing position but the person who got the position had way more experience than I did, so the woman that interviewed me recommended that I be hired as the owner's personal assistant. I start on Monday. The interesting thing about the job is that Tom and I will now be working for the same company (my sister also works there).

Tom does tech support for the company. He'd probably rather be spending his time a million different ways, but it's not too bad.

Other than that we're not doing much. We got a new stove/oven yesterday because our previous stove only had one functional burner and that burner only worked on high or low. Somehow the previous tenant had caught the stove on fire and fried the wiring.